Flying Ants

Yesterday while teaching the wide-eyed first and second graders, I noticed two of the little girls had squirreled away some kind of snack in their shared and deeply  scratched up wooden desk.  A crunchy snack, for I could hear the satisfied sounds of smacking lips and gnashing teeth at my post in the front of the classroom. Looking closer at tiny Eva, I saw she was casually plucking the wings from bulbous ¨flying ants¨ and then discarding them onto the unswept floor below, adding to the exceptionally large pile of shiny wings at her bare feet. But Eva wasn´t the only one, as I began to note similar wing piles beneath other students desks, and then the sly motion of their little hands reaching into pockets or pieces of plastic bags to retrieve their mid morning snack. Mind you, alive morning snack. I´m sure that if I had closed my eyes, I would´ve even heard the distinctive sound of ants buzzing their last buzz. 

When they noticed me noticing their munching, one student dutifully stuck her fist into her personal stash, and retrieving a bursting handful, marched to the front of the class, opening her palm into mine. There I was, in front of 25 children with an offering of live ants - de-winged ants. Blushing fiercely, I tried but one, and then passed them off to Pablo, my brave accomplice in exotic tasting.  In the Orient of Ecuador, it’s the season for flying ants. We even discovered the path the other day that leads to where the community members go in search of these protein packed treats, a path which winds through the root jungle to a big clearing of large nests, all under the lumpy ground.